Undoing Welfare Reform

Arguably one of the greatest successes of the 1994 Republican Revolution was the passage of welfare reform. It was a popular solution to a problem that people had with the welfare system at the time, which basically gave people an endless supply of checks from the government (much like the current bailout situation, except in this case it was for the poor), thus giving them no incentive to find work. Welfare reform removed that endless supply, people started to get jobs again, and our economy boomed.

Buried deep inside the massive spending orgy that Democrats jammed through the House this week lie five words that could drastically undo two decades of welfare reforms.

The very heart of the widely applauded Welfare Reform Act of 1996 is a cap on the amount of federal cash that can be sent to states each year for welfare payments.

But, thanks to the simple phrase slipped into the legislation, the new “stimulus” bill abolishes the limits on the amount of federal money for the so-called Emergency Fund, which ships welfare cash to states.

“Out of any money in the Treasury of the United States not otherwise appropriated, there are appropriated such sums as are necessary for payment to the Emergency Fund,” Democrats wrote in Section 2101 on Page 354 of the $819 billion bill. In other words, the only limit on welfare payments would be the Treasury itself.

“This re-establishes the welfare state and creates dependency all over the place,” said one startled budget analyst after reading the line.

In addition to reopening the floodgates of dependency on federal welfare programs, the change once again deepens the dependency of state governments on the federal government.

There is so much junk in this economic stimulus package that it is designed to fail. Any hopes that people had that Obama would govern pragmatically and from the left-center are now completely out the window. Obama is a hard-left liberal (as those of us here always knew), and he is going to use the power that the Democrats have gained to push this far-left agenda. Whether it be undoing welfare reform, growing the size of government to unprecedented levels, socializing health care, significantly increasing the power of labor unions, or raising taxes, Obama is going to try to remake this country in his image.

On the positive side, he is already overreaching and there is only so much patience that this country will have for far-left policies that don’t work. By 2010 or 2012, the people will be sick of these policies, and Republicans, as long as they offer a better vision of the future and policies that make sense, will be poised to regain power. Hopefully, the damage done by Obama and the Democrats will not be irreversible by then.